Bad journalism:What astronomers - with a little help from Albert Einstein - already understand is that every black hole is surrounded by what's called an event horizon, a threshold at which matter reaches a point of no return. It may be impossible to see the black hole itself, but with the right instruments you can detect the matter at the last moment before it disappears and, in effect, measure and mark the presence of the hole by the very absence it produces. Material at the event horizon forms a so-called accretion disk, a concentrated swirl of dust and gas that orbits the hole at nearly the speed of light, gradually feeding itself inward. It's at that point that, well, something happens to produce the jets. But what?

They clear it up later, though:The matter that produces the jets appears to come from an orbital position near the innermost edge of the accretion disk, about 5.5 times more distant than the horizon itself. That seems remote, but according to Einstein's gravitational theories, it's the last possible point at which matter can move in a stable orbit, because space-time is distorted near a black hole.

No, this is not matter that is trapped by the black hole. It's just matter that gets really close to being trapped, but gets accelerated and then blasted away.

[images2.wikia.nocookie.net image 400x358]Who would know how better than you? :)

I remember seeing that movie in the theater. At the end, in the black hole, where his eyes opened and it had the human eyes creeped me the fark out.

Me, too. It was a pretty un-Disney movie all around. Not that creepiness (e.g. Phantasia) and the deaths of beloved characters were something new to Disney, but it was so violent and scary in parts - not anything I expected as a youngster.

You just need a salvage ship that is considerably smaller to tug your ship just enough to get away from the event horizon, that will allow you and your treasonous first officer to continue your 300 years delayed fight.

Vacation Bible School:You just need a salvage ship that is considerably smaller to tug your ship just enough to get away from the event horizon, that will allow you and your treasonous first officer to continue your 300 years delayed fight.[images.wikia.com image 350x202]

Nitpick: the 'treasonous first officer' Gaheris Rhade died just before they were frozen in time, and so wasn't alive afterwards to continue any adventures. Sure there was the 'Unconquerable Man' episode in which he survived and was Andromeda's captain, but even that episode ended with his sacrificing himself so that Dylan would live. Beka became de facto first officer in their new adventures.

The problem is going to be that since it took an infinite amount of time for you to fall into the black hole (from the outside universe point of view) in the first place that everything will be over once you escape.

KarmicDisaster:The problem is going to be that since it took an infinite amount of time for you to fall into the black hole (from the outside universe point of view) in the first place that everything will be over once you escape.

It just appears to take an infinite amount of time. If you look at what's going on in a causal spacetime diagram (e.g., Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates), you could in principle enter the black hole and escape it again in finite time according to an outside observer, if you could travel faster than light. The problem, of course, is you can't travel FTL, and therefore can't escape in the first place.

Ambitwistor:... you could in principle enter the black hole and escape it again in finite time according to an outside observer, if you could travel faster than light. The problem, of course, is you can't travel FTL, and therefore can't escape in the first place.

Which is the funny part to me with the whole "eject the warp core" plan.

"We're rolling down a hill! Throw the engine out of the car to make us weigh less, and then blow it up to push us back uphill!"

Myria:Why can't you escape from a black hole by firing a rocket straight down continuously? Escape speed is only meaningful when gravity is the only force, right?

I kind of suck at physics, so I probably don't understand something fundamental here.

Y'know how the Earth is pretty big and gravity pulls you to it? One jump isn't going to do it. To leave, you need to get up to 11.2 km/s (25,000 mph).That's a lot, but consider Jupiter. A huge honking planet. You need to be going 59.5 km/s to leave there.And if you were on the surface of the sun (ouch), you need to be going 617.5km/s.And a black hole? Well, at its event horizon, you need to get up to 299,792.458 km/s. And you can't build a rocket that can propel you that fast, because it would take an infinite amount of energy.

Theaetetus:Myria: Why can't you escape from a black hole by firing a rocket straight down continuously? Escape speed is only meaningful when gravity is the only force, right?

I kind of suck at physics, so I probably don't understand something fundamental here.

Y'know how the Earth is pretty big and gravity pulls you to it? One jump isn't going to do it. To leave, you need to get up to 11.2 km/s (25,000 mph).That's a lot, but consider Jupiter. A huge honking planet. You need to be going 59.5 km/s to leave there.And if you were on the surface of the sun (ouch), you need to be going 617.5km/s.And a black hole? Well, at its event horizon, you need to get up to 299,792.458 km/s. And you can't build a rocket that can propel you that fast, because it would take an infinite amount of energy.

But doesn't the concept of escape speed not apply if you have propulsion the whole time? See "Misconception" in Wikipedia's article on escape speed/velocity.

Myria:But doesn't the concept of escape speed not apply if you have propulsion the whole time? See "Misconception" in Wikipedia's article on escape speed/velocity.

Yes. This is why escape from a black hole is different from "escape velocity" in Newtonian gravity. You could escape a "Newtonian black hole" (an object whose surface gravity is great enough that its escape velocity is greater than the speed of light) by accelerating hard enough. But you can't escape an Einsteinian black hole with any acceleration, because spacetime curves inward upon itself to deflect all trajectories toward the interior singularity. The only way to escape an Einsteinian black hole is to go faster than light, but in relativity there's no acceleration or amount of energy that will let you do that.

Ambitwistor:Myria: But doesn't the concept of escape speed not apply if you have propulsion the whole time? See "Misconception" in Wikipedia's article on escape speed/velocity.

Yes. This is why escape from a black hole is different from "escape velocity" in Newtonian gravity. You could escape a "Newtonian black hole" (an object whose surface gravity is great enough that its escape velocity is greater than the speed of light) by accelerating hard enough. But you can't escape an Einsteinian black hole with any acceleration, because spacetime curves inward upon itself to deflect all trajectories toward the interior singularity. The only way to escape an Einsteinian black hole is to go faster than light, but in relativity there's no acceleration or amount of energy that will let you do that.